Abstract
Sustainable agricultural intensification (SAI) requires optimal irrigation methods and strategies. SAI mitigates yield penalties incurred by farmers during irrigation. Thus, adopting modern irrigation practices will ensure more crop per drop of irrigation water used. We provide a state-of-the-art narrative review detailing the evolution of irrigation technologies and provide evidence-based analysis on how this correlates with water use efficiency (WUE). Secondary to this, we also provide a spatial review on the drivers of innovation and adoption of new irrigation technologies. Advances in irrigation technologies have helped to achieve the goal of increasing WUE. However, this has been at the expense of high energy consumption, which threatens the sustainability of the technological gains and their applicability in regions that already face energy constraints. This review sheds light on trade-offs that occur in the selection and adoption of irrigation technology. Irrigation modernization has been driven by global politics and the need to attain food security, this linear approach has created trade-offs with other sectors, hence, challenging sustainability. It is concluded that systematic approaches, such as the water-energy-food nexus, should be considered in the future design of water-saving technologies and irrigation systems to mitigate unintentional trade-offs.
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